The nuclear powered submarine HMS Sovereign is being sent from its base at Faslane to Rosyth dockyard for an emergency repair. Cracks were discovered over a year ago in the tail shaft which drives the propeller. The repair is expected to take 14 weeks and cost 3 million pounds.
The submarine was in a long refit at Rosyth and was rededicated in January 1997. We suspect that the vessel has never been fully operational since coming out of refit. When in refit there was speculation that the vessel might be scrapped, like the first vessel of the class, HMS Swiftsure. It now looks as this might have saved a lot of money.
It is interesting to note that this was the submarine used during the Short Sermon exercise which took place in November 1997. Cracking of the tail shaft on a nuclear submarine could lead to a nuclear accident, if the vessel lost power at a critical moment. Every time submarines travel to and from Faslane they must keep to a navigation channel around the Rossneath peninsula. A few years ago a Navy surface vessel ran aground on rocks when it left the channel.